Henry Kissinger (left) with the President of the Spanish Government, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, in 1973, hours before the attack on the latter. E.P
Initially, the explosion that occurred on the morning of December 20, 1973 near the intersection of Claudio Coello and Maldonado streets in Madrid was attributed to a gas leak. That the deceased were the President of the Government, Luis Carrero Blanco; his driver, José Luis Pérez Mogena; and his companion, Juan Antonio Bueno Fernández, immediately changed the context. The incident turned into an assassination attempt.
To carry out this attack, it was necessary to dig a tunnel and place powerful explosives underground a few meters from the US Embassy. All the secret services of the world’s major powers were united in the region. But a terrorist squad managed to carry out their plan without making much effort to remain unnoticed.
Director Eulogio Romero, passionate about the Spanish transition, was looking for a story about a period that, in his opinion, was “somewhat taboo in the Spanish audiovisual field,” he explained by telephone this Monday. “There are still many interesting elements to be discovered about what really happened during this time of change. And that was the starting point in which two key elements also came together: the external influence of international powers and the internal power struggle for Franco’s successor,” he emphasizes.
Romero set out to tell the results of his research in a documentary series that was not intended to scare the viewer, with a deliberately cinematic thriller tone. He brought up the idea with the production company 100 Balas (The Mediapro Studio), with whom he had already worked. Together they decided to produce “Kill the President”, the first of three episodes of which will premiere this Tuesday, December 5th on Movistar Plus+.
“This was the first time that unrestricted access to the contents of the murder summary was authorized, without forgetting that the volumes were untraceable for many years,” recalls the producer of the work of the investigative team led by Paco Jiménez. After analyzing all the documents, for Romero, “the shortcomings of the investigation showed that very few people were interested in finding out what really happened.”
This exclusive analysis reveals unpublished data in chapter two, available December 12th. The documentary ensures that the ETA symbol placed at the entrance to the hole where the explosives will be placed, attempting to attribute responsibility for the attack to the terrorist group, does not appear in the first photo released on The same day the attack was recorded on site, as was believed until now, but yes in another that was carried out 10 days later.
Hypotheses and conclusions
The fact that ETA, then a newly founded organization, did not have sufficient experience and logistics to carry out such a complex attack on such a relevant figure has sparked conspiracy theory all these years. Some open questions in the police investigation and the lack of a court decision have also currently given rise to this idea. The series covers all hypotheses, so that the viewer “draws his own conclusions” based on the reviewed data, explains the project leader.
An opinion article in this newspaper in 1983, when ten years had passed since the attack, analyzed that “the other question is”. [en torno al asesinato] At issue is whether ETA’s responsibility was complete or limited to being an instrument of a broader operation in which the hidden forces of some powers or international organizations could intervene. (…) Questions, doubts, puzzles, there are many more. And they will certainly remain in the mystery of history,” he predicted.
Eulogio Romero at one point during the recording of “Killing the President.” 100 balls
The three chapters include Ángel Amigo, former member of ETA; Mikel Lejarza The Wolf, who has been infiltrated into the terrorist gang for years; American journalist Tim Weiner, Pulitzer Prize winner; the journalist Pilar Urbano; and former Interior Minister Rodolfo Martín Villa. But even 50 years later, Romero emphasizes, there are still people who don’t want to talk about it, as secret service agents solving the murder. “I wonder why many former members of ETA never wanted to mention what is theoretically their strongest attack,” he asks.
A perfectly crafted oblivion
Carlos Estévez, investigative journalist and co-author of the book Carrero. The hidden reasons for murder in the series say that Carrero Blanco was murdered, but the next day he forgot about it, Romero remembers. Although there are only a few years between Carrero Blanco’s death and February 23, which occurred in an already democratic country, the context was so different that it has given rise to the conspiracy theory surrounding the coup attempt in the collective imagination. “We would have to continue to ask ourselves why there is so much interest in Carrero Blanco’s death being forgotten so quickly,” replies the creator of Killing the President.
The meticulous technical quality of “Killing the President” recreations strives for a cinematic tone. 100 bullets
In the first episode, the series shows how the terrorist group ETA, with a history of just over 10 years, is determined to carry out a major coup in Madrid. And how ETA members Argala and Wilson encounter a mysterious character who identifies Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco as the perfect target for kidnapping.
And how 24 hours before the attack, the controversial Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who died on November 30th, met with Carrero Blanco in Madrid to discuss several issues important to him. The Spanish president was not at all cooperative with him.
He will be replaced in the presidency by Arias Navarro, the only minister in Carrero Blanco’s cabinet whom he did not choose himself, according to researchers and interviewees in the documentary series. Among all the great supporting characters that appear in this real-life plot, Romero believes that the so-called El Pardo clique, based on the entourage of Carmen Polo, the dictator’s wife, has a great documentary series. “One that examines how Franco’s succession was internally intertwined.”
The team of this production emphasizes that, although it was an assassination attempt, the borders were not controlled for security reasons and that the Spanish ambassador to France refused to arrest the ETA members based in the neighboring country to travel to Spain almost immediately Arias Navarros became minister. “Months later, he signed everything that Kissinger didn’t get from Carrero Blanco,” emphasizes the person in charge of the series.
Due to the lack of original material and to make the series appealing to a generation that was not yet born at the time of the assassination, Killing the President resorts to carefully recorded reenactments. The team built a full-fledged Claudio Coello basement where the terrorists operated and dug a tunnel of the same dimensions. “It helped us understand whether the official authors could do it on their own or not. “In addition, it was important to create the tone of a spy series in order to connect with a viewer who, although ignorant of the historical data, knows a lot about audiovisual storytelling and requires a certain sophistication,” argues Romero.
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